And That’s A Wrap!

This year's challenge brought 82 student teams from 18 U.S. states and Mexico to Boulder, Colorado from May 14th through May 17th. This year's event was co-located with the Collegiate Wind Competition.

Each team met this year's extra challenging competition elements with enthusiasm, determination, and out of the box thinking! This year, teams tested their turbine in low speed, medium speed, and high speed tunnels plus the middle school and high school teams took their chances in our Yawing tunnel, which rotated their turbines (mid-test) 90 degrees!

As usual, each presented their design and process to a panel of judges and participated in multiple Instant Challenges. All teams, participated in a new instant challenge that asked them to build a solar water pump. In a second challenge, teams created media to support an imagined rural community called "KidWindlandia" as they debated the development of a proposed solar farm. In addition, each grade division had their own extra surprise challenge. High school students calculated energy efficiency, middle school students participated in a "Lock-Out/Tag-Out" circuitry safety challenge, and elementary students built floating wind turbines using our KidWind favorite Firefly turbines. Lastly, teams participated in a Quizbowl to test their renewable energy knowledge.

This year also brought the Solar Challenge to Nationals for the first time. Ten teams showcased their solar boats, solar towns, solar waterparks and hotels. We were blown away! We hope to expand this element of the competition next year.

Finally, 22 teams (wind and solar!) participated in our pilot Fixed Bottom Offshore Wind Challenge, which asked them to build and bring a foundation that could be installed into a tank (using only tools - no hands) and then wheeled into our new offshore wind tunnel. The teams really showed off their superb engineering design skills in this one!

Check out our Top Performers and Special Award winners below!